Growing up, I loved watching scary movies. The scarier the better. However, the thing that annoyed me the most, and which was common to almost all scary movies, was the men and women who knew that they were home alone, but insisted on investigating the strange noise(s) at the back door. “Hello, is anyone there,” they would inquire as they tugged at the closed door.

This morning, as I thought about this pop culture phenomenon, I chuckled. How often have I been that person? How many times has God closed doors in my life and I have gone back to see whether someone or something still remained behind the closed door? Oftentimes, our tendencies to go backward stem from our desire to people please. Our insecurities have also manifested in our social media. There are even apps that tell us whether others have de-friended us from their social media applications. We rename our inquiry closure or curiosity.

The truth is, sometimes, there is no logical reason for closed doors. Yes, sometimes, we get a raw deal. We get fired. We get dumped. We get rejected. There are moments when life just seems unfair, and it feels like we are always left holding the bag with the broken pieces. Fortunately, even when it feels like everything around us is falling apart, God is still in control. Romans 8:28 tells us that, “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,” (KJV). So, that means that God is there even when all else has failed. Additionally, what we might deem as man’s rejection, might actually be God’s design. Maybe, just maybe, it’s no coincidence that certain doors in our lives have closed. In Revelation 3:8, God says, “Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut,” (NIV).

I believe that in order for many of us to achieve the happiness that we so crave, we have to refrain from picking the locks on our closed doors. We have to stop chasing shadows and mirages. We have to fight our inclination to mourn the dead things in our lives. Remember, resuscitation takes a tremendous amount of energy. Just ask anyone who has ever administered CPR. It’s exhausting! So is pursuing dead ends, unilateral relationships and rejection. Sometimes, we just have to learn to move on and press forward without looking back.